Hi Dancook,
I've recently gotten my hands on a 3D Printer (Cube 3) and as you know it can only print ABS and PLA. I'd really like to print TPU and was wondering if you would help me understand (in detail) what I would need to do this? I'm very new with 3D printers, so as detailed as possible would be greatly appreciated!
Thanksmeafrd@outlook.com

Hey Dorris, I have the same setup, printer and diet Wi-Fi. I haven’t messed with mine in awhile but actually just got the go ahead to play with it some more in the last couple days. So I’ll have to refresh my memory on the codes etc. I remember I had all the coding done on it except for a few. I know I needed to get the bin swipe codes done for the extruder before the print started, did you get that? I’ll look thru your codes to see. Also did you set up the enclosure heater? I never set mine up, but probably will.

Edit, just remembered that the waste bin swipe procedure would be in the slicer. For instance I was using simplified and it would be there that it would need to be added

Also when I got mine it was in pieces. In one of your picture there’s a metal shield in the back right corner. I’ve got that shield but don’t know what it’s purpose is for. What’s underneath it? Mine doesn’t have anything there

I am new to 3D printing and just scored a pair of Duo's for $250CAD. One works fine and has been modded by previous owner to take std 1.75 filament. The other has a problem with electronics. My intention is to Reprap this one and use the other to build any parts i need for it.
I decided not to go the 32bit route as, at the moment I feel it would be overkill. I have on order a Rumba clone (Tango v1) with smart controller lcd and have prepped a Pi B+ I had laying around (from a Brewpi project) with Octopi and Octoprint.

I have stripped out the electronics and am raring to go. I have a few decisions I need to make before I order some more parts and am seeking advice from you guys who have been there before.

First issue is 12v or 24v power supply.
I will almost certainly add a heated bed in the future. I am also planning to replace the hot ends (more later).
The Tango will take 12-24v but from what I can see from the schematics the hot bed and the first 2 extruders will run off the input voltage and the 3rd extruder and 2 fan o/ps can be selected 12 or input voltage. I don't have a 3rd extruder so that can be used for something else if necessary (if it can be configured to do so in marlin).
Are there any issues with stepper motor voltage?
I understand benefits in using 24v in terms of lower current flow and how it affects wire gauge choice but are there any other considerations?
If I were to keep the stock hot ends I assume I would need to go 12v?
As for hot ends, general concensus I get from multiple read throughs of this thread (and many more) is that the stock hot ends are not that great. I would like to use the stock extruder so is the right way to go to buy the v6 hot end with the screw in bowden fitting on the end and turn that down to 10mm to fit the existing extruder?
Will this make the length correct? Do I need to enlarge the hole to make clearance for heatsink? Are there any new approaches to this problem?
Should I buy the hot end with fan attached or use the existing carriage mounted fans?
I'm a bit confused with choice for hot ends regarding ptfe or full metal and also the heat breaks, where do they come in and why?
There are also all the options for nozzle size what size is best for gen purpose?
There are a bewildering array of available options online so it's great to have this forum available to help save making multiple wrong purchases.

Quotejimboh3
I am new to 3D printing and just scored a pair of Duo's for $250CAD. One works fine and has been modded by previous owner to take std 1.75 filament. The other has a problem with electronics. My intention is to Reprap this one and use the other to build any parts i need for it.
I decided not to go the 32bit route as, at the moment I feel it would be overkill. I have on order a Rumba clone (Tango v1) with smart controller lcd and have prepped a Pi B+ I had laying around (from a Brewpi project) with Octopi and Octoprint.

Lots of options ahead, including simply using the printer that you have and the other as spare parts.

Be aware that going down the road of building or even modding a printer can suck the money straight from your bank account, and even not making any "wrong purchases" you can end up spending a fair chunk of change. In the end, you really SHOULD end up with something that's better than any kind of $500 kit that you're going to find, but you may well end up spending more than $500 when you add up the pieces, too. Having something that can bootstrap the process, allowing you to print your pwn parts is a good place to start, and often where people start from with the $300-$500 kit. (Or at least that's where I started from.) My kit printer is still running, though I haven't powered it on for a while.

Power supply: 24V is vastly superior, and will give you more options for kinematics, and various drive systems, as well as readily avaialble heated beds, before you get to mains-powered ceramic heaters bonded to tool plate. On the other hand, 12V ATX power supplies are available cheap. Even cheaper if you have an old PC that you were about to junk.

Heater cartridges are cheap, and can usually be replaced for 12V or 24V operation, if you have the wrong one. NBD. changing out the heater in the stock hot ends is likely to be relatively easy.

There are all kinds of options for replacing the hot ends, too,a nd if you are going to go that route, then the voltage isn't an issue, as you can get almost any of them in whatever configuration you want. The E3D V6 is a nice hot-end, and there are lots of options for mounting them.

Most people seem to have settled on 0.4mm for nozzle size. This gives a fair amount of detail in the finished prints, and seems to give a reasonable overall print speed. For the E3Dv6 hot ends, you can go anywhere from 0.2 to 0.6. For larger, the Volcano style heat blocks take over. Personally, I'm looking at being able to swap between a "regular" e3Dv6 with a 0.4mm nozzle and a Volcano block with a 0.8mm nozzle for more rapid prototyping.

Thanks guys for the swift response and good reading including the link. I should have mentioned that I am also a tinkerer. Get a ton of pleasure out of building this kind of stuff.
I am familiar with using SSRs as I am on my third incarnation of electric brewery build and PWM 4.5kw elements.
If I went for an AC heat bed I assume I would need an SSR for tighter heat control using PWM? Or do you just use a relay an no PWM?
My fermentation chamber uses a 100W ceramic heater and I just use a 10A relay for that but I am maintaining much lower and looser temps.

I do have a 10A 12v PSU from a security camera system but I will purchase a 24v if that makes more sense.
Because I have 2 Y steppers I ordered DR8825 drivers because i thought, maybe mistakenly, that I would need more current to drive two and the DR8825 appeared to be higher rated. I have read that I can drive them in serial or parallel but I have also read I can use the spare extruder driver on the rumba for the second stepper motor. Did I misunderstand and was it a mistake getting the DR8825s? I have read of issues, but also that they are easily sorted.
The place I am ordering from has option of DR8825, A4988 or TM2100(extra $30). they havent shipped yet so possibly still time to change the order.

Hey guys! It's been a while since I've looked through this thread... my Cubex is still printing away... I've had some issues lately with Z-banding, and had to come back here to figure out what size lead screw these things use. I've been using 0.2mm layer heights for my prints, and it turns out that's going to cause a layer issue every 7-8 mm... The Prusa layer calculator says that 0.195 and 0.210 should work without causing the error, so I'll give it a go tonight.

Yeah it's an imperial thread, so there will always be rounding errors. I changed the steps per mm to an even 1000 then stretched the model to correct the size for a while, but it could still look crappy. Recently changed the drive to one of the 8mm per turn shaft motors like in the i3's, get perfect z layers now. Having the shaft as part of the motor also reduced the slop/play in the bed significantly.

The print head heaters do need 15V to operate properly. I tried a Cubepro head which I am guessing runs at 24V as the higher resistance heater wire meant the Duet would think there was a fault as it couldn't heat it fast enough.

One thing I did that improved the print quality to a point where it wasn't worth changing, was to put a piece of 1200 grit wet and dry paper on the bed and run the hotend over it a circular motion to get the bottom flat, they are kind of rounded as standard and don't push the layers down properly.

"One thing I did that improved the print quality to a point where it wasn't worth changing, was to put a piece of 1200 grit wet and dry paper on the bed and run the hotend over it a circular motion to get the bottom flat, they are kind of rounded as standard and don't push the layers down properly."

QuoteFirefox3D
The print head heaters do need 15V to operate properly. I tried a Cubepro head which I am guessing runs at 24V as the higher resistance heater wire meant the Duet would think there was a fault as it couldn't heat it fast enough.

Did you run heater tuning? On the Duet, heater tuning not only allows good PID parameters to be calculated, it also calibrates what the firmware considers normal behaviour for the heater, which affects the heater fault detection.

Thanks, Firefox3D... I literally beat my head up against the wall trying to figure out how to print without the rounding errors... I ordered one of the stepper/lead screw combos as you mentioned... it'll be here tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get perfect prints tomorrow. Did you get a NEMA 17 version? I didn't see any NEMA 23 versions.

I am in NS Canada and saw an ad on Kijiji. Had to drive 3hr round trip to get them but thought it worthwhile.
Had a little free filament with it so was able to test print on the working one and now am awaiting new spools and all the electronics so I can start resurrecting the second one.

QuoteDancook
Thanks, Firefox3D... I literally beat my head up against the wall trying to figure out how to print without the rounding errors... I ordered one of the stepper/lead screw combos as you mentioned... it'll be here tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get perfect prints tomorrow. Did you get a NEMA 17 version? I didn't see any NEMA 23 versions.

You can get custom Nema 23's but they were pretty expensive, I "borrowed" mine from my converted Ormerod 2, just made an adaptor plate out of aluminium to fit it. One thing that I really should have mentioned is the holding torque of the motor when powered off may not be able to hold the bed up. Mine has another bed support (from a spare cubepro) crosslinked with the original and a 5mm aluminium plate for the heated bed that adds considerably more weight, so yours may well be ok. I have to move my bed to the maximum, in my case 228mm when powering down, then when turning back on I have a G92 Z228 command in the startup file.

QuoteFirefox3D
The print head heaters do need 15V to operate properly. I tried a Cubepro head which I am guessing runs at 24V as the higher resistance heater wire meant the Duet would think there was a fault as it couldn't heat it fast enough.

Did you run heater tuning? On the Duet, heater tuning not only allows good PID parameters to be calculated, it also calibrates what the firmware considers normal behaviour for the heater, which affects the heater fault detection.

I was trying the other head as I thought I had a fault with the original one, turned out just to be a half broken wire near one of the crimps. The resistance of the Cubex heater is 5 ohms which seems to be in the normal range, the Cubepro head is nearer to 10 ohms, is this within tunable range?

QuoteFirefox3D
I was trying the other head as I thought I had a fault with the original one, turned out just to be a half broken wire near one of the crimps. The resistance of the Cubex heater is 5 ohms which seems to be in the normal range, the Cubepro head is nearer to 10 ohms, is this within tunable range?

If you were running a 10 ohm heater at 12V then it would probably not be able to maintain printing temperature. At 15V it would probably be OK, at least for the temperatures needed to print PLA.

QuoteFirefox3D
I was trying the other head as I thought I had a fault with the original one, turned out just to be a half broken wire near one of the crimps. The resistance of the Cubex heater is 5 ohms which seems to be in the normal range, the Cubepro head is nearer to 10 ohms, is this within tunable range?

If you were running a 10 ohm heater at 12V then it would probably not be able to maintain printing temperature. At 15V it would probably be OK, at least for the temperatures needed to print PLA.

That makes sense, I really only print ABS on the printer. It took about twice as long but could get to around 220 degrees ok, but took too long to get to 240 so the firmware assumed an error.

Quick question - does anyone know what voltage the led enclosure and hotend lights on a cube PRO run on? They have a resistor wired in to them, I have tried the. On 12v but they seem too bright-I’m concerned they will be cooked if I run them at this voltage.
I’m . In the process of installing a panel duet to a cube pro trio

Quotejason128
Quick question - does anyone know what voltage the led enclosure and hotend lights on a cube PRO run on? They have a resistor wired in to them, I have tried the. On 12v but they seem too bright-I’m concerned they will be cooked if I run them at this voltage.
I’m . In the process of installing a panel duet to a cube pro trio

The led on the carriage run off of 12v I believe. You should be good. I have a 24v power supply powering my duet Wi-Fi. I have 2 of the stock leds on my carriage running to the same fan output, making their power be 12 each, which they are rated for.